That’s from a man who knows what it takes to be first across the Boston finish line: Bill Rodgers, who won in 1975, 1978, 1979 and 1980.
“I’d love to see the Americans win, and they really have a chance,” Rodgers, 61, said in a telephone interview. “It would be bigger than my winning or Alberto Salazar or Greg Meyer because it would be slaying the dragon.”
No U.S. runner has won since 1985, and Americans haven’t taken both the men’s and women’s divisions since 1983. Kenyan men have won all but three Boston Marathons since Ibrahim Hussein’s one-second victory in 1988.
Today’s challenge comes from two newcomers to the Boston race. Ryan Hall is the top-ranked American male, at odds of 9-2, according to Dublin-based Paddy Power PLC, Ireland’s largest bookmaker. Kara Goucher, at 9-4, leads not just among American women but all women in the race.
It’s the first time any U.S. competitor has been considered a threat to end the Kenyans’ dominance of the 113-year-old event, the longest-running race of its kind in the world, said Fred Treseler, 56, a veteran running coach who is tending the 29 elite entrants in this year’s race.
Olympic Athlete
Hall, 26, a Stanford University graduate from Big Bear Lake, California, posted a record time of 2 hours, 9 minutes and 2 seconds last year in the U.S. Olympic Team trials marathon. He went on to finish 10th in Beijing.
Goucher, 30, is a University of Colorado graduate who finished third among the women last year in her hometown race, the New York Marathon. A time of 2:25:53 made her the first American woman to place in the top three since 1994.
Together, Hall and Goucher could trigger a renaissance for American runners, said Amby Burfoot, the 1968 Boston winner.
“Ryan and Kara are attractive, smart, lovely people, and they bring all that to the starting line,” Burfoot said, calling them the new Rodgers and Joan Benoit Samuelson. Samuelson, 51, won gold at the first women’s Olympic marathon in 1984 and is a two-time Boston winner. Hall and Goucher weren’t available to comment.
Marathons can be tricky to predict because there are so many variables, Treseler said. The odds say Hall’s quest for victory will be more difficult than Goucher’s. At least eight other men have the potential to best Hall, including Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot, who is going for his fifth Boston win and fourth in a row, he said.
Massachusetts Holiday
The race is the biggest event on Patriots’ Day, a Massachusetts holiday on the third Monday in April that commemorates the 1775 showdown in Concord and Lexington between colonists and British troops. It’s still early when crowds begin to gather and vendors set out their souvenirs and fried bread dough on the old town common in Hopkinton, next to the starting line. The top runners are secreted in the basement of a white- steepled church nearby.
When the starting gun is fired at 9:35 a.m. for women and 10 a.m. for men, those elite runners lead the charge on a course that winds up and down hills for 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) through seven towns before ending in Boston.
Americans pulled off the 1983 win in both the men’s and women’s divisions with Meyer and Benoit. Lisa Weidenbach’s victory in 1985 was the last for an American of either gender. Neither Meyer nor Benoit is running this year, Treseler said.
Rodgers’s Return
It’s Rodgers’s first Boston Marathon since 1999, when he dropped out because of dehydration. He’s returning after a prostate cancer diagnosis in 2007 and surgery last year. His four wins earned Rodgers the nickname “Boston Billy” and propelled him into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame.
In his heyday, Rodgers, who received a master’s degree from Boston College, drew thousands of supporters at favorite checkpoints like Wellesley College in Wellesley and Heartbreak Hill in Newton. On the race route in Framingham, Peter Phylis said he had throngs of thirsty spectators waiting to enter his 120-seat Happy Swallow pub when Rodgers competed.
“It’s still busy on the day of the race but not like that, nothing like those days,” he said. The emergence of an American runner as a favorite would bring out more fans, he said.
A local competitor who stands a chance of winning would stimulate news media interest in the event, said Tim Kilduff, who was the marathon’s race director in 1983 and 1984.
“They’d track him through winter training,” he said.
Kilduff, 60, heads the Hopkinton Athletic Association, which he founded in 1996 to raise funds for local projects and raise the town’s profile in the running world.
“The only thing better than an American winning this race would be a person born and raised in Hopkinton winning,” he said. “Now that would be the ultimate.”
“I’d love to see the Americans win, and they really have a chance,” Rodgers, 61, said in a telephone interview. “It would be bigger than my winning or Alberto Salazar or Greg Meyer because it would be slaying the dragon.”
No U.S. runner has won since 1985, and Americans haven’t taken both the men’s and women’s divisions since 1983. Kenyan men have won all but three Boston Marathons since Ibrahim Hussein’s one-second victory in 1988.
Today’s challenge comes from two newcomers to the Boston race. Ryan Hall is the top-ranked American male, at odds of 9-2, according to Dublin-based Paddy Power PLC, Ireland’s largest bookmaker. Kara Goucher, at 9-4, leads not just among American women but all women in the race.
It’s the first time any U.S. competitor has been considered a threat to end the Kenyans’ dominance of the 113-year-old event, the longest-running race of its kind in the world, said Fred Treseler, 56, a veteran running coach who is tending the 29 elite entrants in this year’s race.
Olympic Athlete
Hall, 26, a Stanford University graduate from Big Bear Lake, California, posted a record time of 2 hours, 9 minutes and 2 seconds last year in the U.S. Olympic Team trials marathon. He went on to finish 10th in Beijing.
Goucher, 30, is a University of Colorado graduate who finished third among the women last year in her hometown race, the New York Marathon. A time of 2:25:53 made her the first American woman to place in the top three since 1994.
Together, Hall and Goucher could trigger a renaissance for American runners, said Amby Burfoot, the 1968 Boston winner.
“Ryan and Kara are attractive, smart, lovely people, and they bring all that to the starting line,” Burfoot said, calling them the new Rodgers and Joan Benoit Samuelson. Samuelson, 51, won gold at the first women’s Olympic marathon in 1984 and is a two-time Boston winner. Hall and Goucher weren’t available to comment.
Marathons can be tricky to predict because there are so many variables, Treseler said. The odds say Hall’s quest for victory will be more difficult than Goucher’s. At least eight other men have the potential to best Hall, including Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot, who is going for his fifth Boston win and fourth in a row, he said.
Massachusetts Holiday
The race is the biggest event on Patriots’ Day, a Massachusetts holiday on the third Monday in April that commemorates the 1775 showdown in Concord and Lexington between colonists and British troops. It’s still early when crowds begin to gather and vendors set out their souvenirs and fried bread dough on the old town common in Hopkinton, next to the starting line. The top runners are secreted in the basement of a white- steepled church nearby.
When the starting gun is fired at 9:35 a.m. for women and 10 a.m. for men, those elite runners lead the charge on a course that winds up and down hills for 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) through seven towns before ending in Boston.
Americans pulled off the 1983 win in both the men’s and women’s divisions with Meyer and Benoit. Lisa Weidenbach’s victory in 1985 was the last for an American of either gender. Neither Meyer nor Benoit is running this year, Treseler said.
Rodgers’s Return
It’s Rodgers’s first Boston Marathon since 1999, when he dropped out because of dehydration. He’s returning after a prostate cancer diagnosis in 2007 and surgery last year. His four wins earned Rodgers the nickname “Boston Billy” and propelled him into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame.
In his heyday, Rodgers, who received a master’s degree from Boston College, drew thousands of supporters at favorite checkpoints like Wellesley College in Wellesley and Heartbreak Hill in Newton. On the race route in Framingham, Peter Phylis said he had throngs of thirsty spectators waiting to enter his 120-seat Happy Swallow pub when Rodgers competed.
“It’s still busy on the day of the race but not like that, nothing like those days,” he said. The emergence of an American runner as a favorite would bring out more fans, he said.
A local competitor who stands a chance of winning would stimulate news media interest in the event, said Tim Kilduff, who was the marathon’s race director in 1983 and 1984.
“They’d track him through winter training,” he said.
Kilduff, 60, heads the Hopkinton Athletic Association, which he founded in 1996 to raise funds for local projects and raise the town’s profile in the running world.
“The only thing better than an American winning this race would be a person born and raised in Hopkinton winning,” he said. “Now that would be the ultimate.”
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